Kane County Board frustrated that sheriff again misses monthly update

Kane County Board members have now reached the point where they believe Sheriff Don Kramer has no respect for them or the need to solve his office's budget problems.

And they said Thursday they will prepare to slash Kramer's budget once again, with or without his input.

For the second month in a row, Kramer was a no-show for his monthly report to the board. Instead, members of the county board's judicial and public safety committee viewed a financial report that shows overtime costs for the jail staff have continued to rise despite removing about 100 federal marshal detainees earlier this year.

That increased cost plus the loss of about $2.5 million in expected income from housing the detainees has now resulted in a $183,000 budget hole.

The county board already trimmed Kramer's budget by more than $1.7 million earlier this year. But Kramer has made no indication so far as to whether he will follow those budget cuts, present an alternate plan or simply continue to spend under the parameters of his original budget.

The sheriff has, however, sent some feedback to the county's finance director, Joe Onzick, stating he believes the jail is still understaffed and at least 12 of the 20 line-item projections for revenue were "grossly overstated."

In response, Onzick presented figures showing the original sheriff's office 2015 budget, minus the money for processing property foreclosures, is only about $15,000 off what 2014's actual expenses ended up being.

"What was budgeted for 2015 was reasonable at the time it was budgeted," Onzick said.

The ongoing budget concerns and lack of input from Kramer fueled frustration by board members Tuesday.

"The sheriff is not here," said board member John Martin. "There is no conversation going on. We don't have any feedback. We have a $500,000 problem remaining in this budget, and we don't know anything. We don't have the right to demand that anyone sits down and talks to us, but this is little better than whistling in the dark."

Kramer did have two staff members from his office at the meeting. But they both said they had no information about the sheriff's budget and could not answer questions. They did, however, promise to relay the board's concerns to Kramer.

"He has a fiduciary responsibility to give us an update, and he's not here," said committee Chairman Cristina Castro. "We are frustrated. We have a lot of issues out there that we need to be resolved. Tell him, from this point forward, I expect the sheriff to be here."

After the meeting, county board Chairman Chris Lauzen expressed his contempt for Kramer's silent treatment.

"Everybody is offering to work together; there is only one person who is not," Lauzen said. "This board authorized approximately $29.2 million for his office, and they are entitled to monthly progress reports and conversation. I don't think that there's anything we're going to talk about or do that's going to have more of an effect on the taxpayers than running this budget properly. The members of this board are being badly disrespected, and it's obvious."